Film Archive | Jewish Film Institute

Exhibition Series

2020 Filmmakers in Residence
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2022 JFI Completion Grants
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2023 JFI Completion Grants
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2024 JFI Completion Grants
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2026 JFI Completion Grants
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JFI Filmmakers in Residence
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Filtered By: USA Clear All

Bulletproof Stockings

IPerl and Dalia have come together to pursue their passion for music and form a band, Bulletproof Stockings. They also happen to be the first-ever Hasidic alternative-rock girl band.

About This Film

About This Film

About This Film

About This Film

A loving tribute to a Golden Age in American Jewish life when chazzanut--the celebrated cantorial art--reached its zenith. Renowned cantors made best-selling recordings and attracted followers who would travel miles to hear them. The film follows the journey of Jack Mendelson, a Brooklyn-born son of a deli owner, who today trains future cantors in the nearly lost traditions of Eastern European sacred music.

Carfare City

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Carl Laemmle

Carl Laemmle is the extraordinary life story of the German Jewish immigrant who, as much as anyone, invented the modern motion picture business. The man whose motto was, "It can be done," fought and ultimately conquered Thomas Edison's attempts to monopolize the film industry. Creating Universal Pictures in 1912, Laemmle would go on to give many Hollywood legends their starts, including Walt Disney, John Ford, William Wyler and others. He also hired many women directors and made Lois Weber the highest paid director on his lot. Under Laemmle's leadership, Universal would become known for its classic monster movies (The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, Dracula, etc.). When he sold Universal in 1936, Laemmle would go on to do something far moreimportant than any movie: battling Adolph Hitler's government, confronting a notoriously anti-Semitic U.S. State Department and ultimately rescuing over 300 Jewish refugee families from Nazi Germany.

Carpati: 50 Miles, 50 Years

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Carvalho's Journey

Few westward journeys were as exciting as that taken by American Jewish photographer and artist Solomon Carvalho in 1853–54 with explorer John C. Fremont’s ill-fated fifth expedition in search of a viable route for a transcontinental railroad. Hired to document the trip with daguerreotype images, Carvalho barely survived. Stunning photography, modern-day daguerreotypes and illustrations made from Carvalho’s originals and words from Carvalho’s diary, enliven this portrait of a remarkable man.

The Catskills (Comedy Spotlight)

This humor-filled, nostalgic celebration of vacation resorts in the Borscht Belt paints a vibrant picture of 20th-century Jewish-American history.

Century Village Shiddach

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Charene Zalis: Repairing the World: Stories From the Tree of Life

For three years REPAIRING THE WORLD: STORIES FROM THE TREE OF LIFE follows survivors, families of the victims, diverse community members, students and civic leaders as they examine their vulnerabilities and the impact of rising antisemitism, racism, hate speech, and gun violence. Against the backdrop of a tumultuous period in the country, a local community that has faced violence and trauma works to heal and grapple with what it means to be stronger than hate.

Chasing Portraits

Moshe Rynecki’s granddaughter is on a quest to recover the Polish-Jewish artist’s works lost during World War II.

Chasing the Grail

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Chicks in White Satin

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The Chosen

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Chronicle of a Jump

To jump or not to jump . . . Director Zohar Lavi examines the borders of fear and courage in this sweet and creative film.

City of Joel

50 miles north of New York City lies the town of Monroe, where one of the fastest-growing Hasidic communities in the country thrives deep within the Hudson Valley. As the 25,000+ population within the village of Kiryas Joel looks to expand their city, the neighboring villages of non-Hasids see the encroaching community as a burgeoning power grab, leading to an increasingly tense standoff between locals. Shot over several years with seemingly boundless access, Emmy-winning director Jesse Sweet's documentary observes the simmering tensions that have come to define the community of Monroe, and the myriad ways in which the town's divide echoes the country's as well.

Class Divide

One-hundred-fifteen steps is all that separates a public housing complex from a private school for Manhattan’s elite. Class Divide shines a light on people who live a stone’s throw apart but inhabit completely different worlds. Despite grim statistics about poverty, the film is imbued with optimism as it shares stories from both sides of the street and finds common ground in the hopes and dreams of young people and their families. —Stephanie Rapp

A Classy Broad

This delightful film documents the life of Marcia Nasatir, starting with her childhood as a Jewish girl in Texas and ending up in Hollywood where she broke through the glass ceiling to become the first female vice president of production at United Artists. Featuring clips from films such as Rocky and The Big Chill (which she helped bring to the screen) and interviews with Hollywood luminaries, A Classy Broad details a singular life.

Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah

Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 documentary Shoah is arguably one of the greatest documentaries of all time. Lanzmann sat at length to discusses at length the making of his masterwork, including the secret filming of former Nazis,; the lengthy process of convincing traumatized Holocaust survivors to open up on camera; and the exhausting challenge of chronicling one of the greatest atrocities in history. Screening with the shorts Ischler,; Zement; and German Shepherd.

Closing Night: We Met at Grossinger's

An immersive journey through the vibrant history of the Grossinger's Resort Hotel, a landmark of the Catskills—known as the Borscht Belt—that played a pivotal role in shaping Jewish American identity and culture.

Opening Night: Coexistence, My Ass!

Noam Shuster-Eliassi grew up as the literal poster child for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process before making a sharp pivot to stand-up comedy and political satire. But as the region descends further into devastating violence, she is now called to meet the moment—challenging her audiences with hard truths that are no laughing matter.

Coexistence, My Ass!

Coexistence, My Ass! follows Israeli comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi as she struggles to create a one-woman comedy show called “Coexistence, My Ass!” about racism, sexism, war, peace and… her ass. With hatred and violence in Israel/Palestine turbo-charged like never before, “co-existence” already a problematic term now sounds like a bad joke — so where does she go from here?

Cohen on the Telephone

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The Collector of Bedford Street

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Comedy Warriors

Five disabled Iraq/Afghanistan vets bring their painful life-altering experiences onstage, transforming tragedy into brutally fierce comedy gold, mentored by mirth masters Bob Saget, Zach Galifinakis and Lewis Black. With only days to prepare, the five are flown to Hollywood for a gig at LA’s famous Punch Line club. The big night finds the comedy warriors comprehending the healing power of humor and discovering that their lives are about to take an unexpected direction. Followed by live standup comedy by subject Joe Kashnow.

Commie Camp

Commie Camp opens with Rush Limbaugh blasting an Obama nominee for sending her kids to a “politically left-wing Jewish summer camp with Communist roots”. That’s Camp Kinderland, and filmmaker and comedian Katie Halper, a third generation Kinderlander, returns to make this delightful film about an inclusive, multiethnic, antiracist community dedicated to making the world a better place. Education or indoctrination? You decide.

Commune

What draws Jews to utopian communities? From socialist farms in the early Soviet days to kibbutzim and moshavim, Jews have often been attracted to communal living. Jonathan Berman’s engaging documentary explores one of the boldest such experiments: the Black Bear Ranch in Siskiyou County, California. Featuring Black Bear members Harriet Beinfeld, Peter Coyote, Geba Greenberg, Efrem Korngold, Elsa Marley and Osha Neumann, among others, Commune is an elegantly crafted testament to people who dared to dream of a world remade.

A Compassionate Spy

Academy Award® nominated filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams) tells the story of Ted Hall, the youngest physicist on the Manhattan Project, and his fateful decision to leak highly classified nuclear secrets to the Soviets.

Complaints

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Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter

With remarkable insight and a healthy dose of levity, Deborah Hoffmann chronicles the various stages of her mother's Alzheimer's disease as well as the evolution of her own response to this illness. This Academy Award- nominated film explores the mysteries of memory and the fierce and complex facets of a daughter's love.

The Conductor - Centerpiece Documentary

A joyful tribute to perseverance, resiliency, and most of all the music, The Conductor is a profile of one groundbreaking woman who believes in the transformational power of art.

Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death and Technology

The kaleidoscope of clips in this wide-ranging documentary is so entertaining one could happily watch it with the sound off. But it would be a shame to miss Tiffany Shlain’s meditations on modern life and technology. The Bay Area–based filmmaker delves into everything from the honeybee crisis to her household’s weekly “technology shabbat” to her father’s struggle with brain cancer, all in an effort to understand our need to connect.

The Conspiracy and the Dybbuk

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